‘We don’t have NUC nod to run independent degrees’ — Enugu dental college clarifies

The Federal College of Dental Technology and Therapy (FEDCODTTEN) in Enugu has dissociated itself from claims portraying it as already possessing the full authorisation to run independent degree programmes.

The Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) had earlier approved the commencement of degree programmes at the dental college but in affiliation with the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO).

In a statement issued via the dental college’s web page on Tuesday, the college raised the alarm that misleading statements not signed by it are making the rounds to portray the institution as possessing the right to run independent degrees.

Omololu Ogunmade, the college’s spokesperson, attributed the claims to what he termed “mischievous elements” attempting to truncate efforts by the institution towards securing NUC nod to morph it into a university.

“Our attention has been drawn to a statement purportedly circulated by us with misleading information about the approval granted by the NUC for the commencement of undergraduate programmes in our institution,” it wrote.

“It is against the background of the approval conveyed by NUC’s letter, signed by the Director of Academic Planning, Dr N.B. Saliu, that we issued a clear statement stating that the regulatory body had given us the nod to proceed with our degree programmes at the college premises but in collaboration with FUTO.”

According to the dental college, no statement of that nature had emanated from the authorities of the institution.

“In our commitment to defer the power to award degrees for the academic programmes to FUTO (because we do not have that power and requirements yet to unilaterally award degrees), we stated without fear of equivocation that the approved degree programmes would only be run in College premises with FUTO as our mentor,” it added.

“But the other statement circulated by mischief makers listed academic programmes approved by NUC and proceeded to create the impression that we were authorised to independently run the programmes.

“We hereby state that this controversial statement was not circulated by us and we urge the general public to ignore it and keep faith only with the statement signed by us as published in national dailies and posted below.”